Milestones: Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Lessons and tidbits from history on this day

June 21, 2023 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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STRATEGIC PACIFIC THEATER WIN — THE BATTLE OF OKINAWA ended on June 21, 1945 with a decisive U.S. victory but with heavy casualties on both the American and Japanese sides. Rather than be taken captive, Japanese Major General Isamu Cho and Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima killed themselves in the ceremonial rite of seppuku that dates back to the 12th century. The fierce battle, which had begun on April 1 and was codenamed “Operation Iceberg,” saw an enormous American death toll—7,613 died on land and 4,907 in the air or from kamikaze attacks, and 36 U.S. warships were sunk. But casualties on the Japanese side were even higher: More than 70,000 soldiers and 80,000 civilian Okinawans died.

Okinawa was a strategic archipelago as it provided Allied forces an airbase on which to strike the Japanese mainland.

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FIRST WOMAN TO LEAD MUSLIM NATION — June 21, 1953 marks the 70th birth anniversary of BENAZIR BHUTTO, in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan the first woman democratically elected to lead a Muslim nation. She served as Pakistan’s prime minister during 1988–90 and again 1993–96, achieving significant national reform, especially on women’s issues. However, each of her terms ended with her being charged with corruption and ejected from office due to Pakistan’s patriarchal and turbulent political history. Persistent, she again campaigned for prime minister but was assassinated on December 27, 2006 in Punjab, Pakistan by a suicide bomber — although some news reports indicated she had first been shot.

Bhutto’s book, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West, which was published posthumously about six weeks after her death, posited that Pakistanis needed to rediscover the values of tolerance and justice that she said are at the heart of her religion, and argued that democracy and Islam are completely compatible, blaming politics for the roots of terrorism.

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NATIONAL INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY — The Government of Canada established June 21 — the summer solstice — as the day to honor the nation’s First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. Canadians recognize and celebrate the diverse cultures and outstanding contributions of these three groups and their languages, cultural practices and beliefs.

The Canadian government has built a renewed relationship with Indigenous peoples, based on recognition of rights, respect, cooperation and partnership, including laws to protect these communities to hunt food according to their traditions.

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“A ‘CHARACTERIST’ RATHER THAN A CARICATURIST” — Caricature artist Al Hirschfeld, born on June 21, 1903 in St. Louis, Missouri, gained acclaim for his inimitable sketches of Broadway and Hollywood stars. His cartoons debuted in 1926 in the New York Herald Tribune during that newspaper’s existence. Hirschfeld later began drawing for the New York Times, where his art was published on the drama pages for seven decades. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of many arts institutions that exhibits Hirschfeld’s art. Ben Brantley, for 20 years the NY Times chief theater critic, wrote in a December 9, 2021 essay that “These Hirschfeld Drawings Capture Sondheim’s Shows Better Than Any Photo.” Hirschfeld had a gift for understanding both human physique as well as one’s individual characteristics; many of his drawings soared. At the time, Sondheim had died the previous month.

Aficionados have one more day to visit the current exhibit at The Museum of Broadway; it closes on June 21, 2023, what would have been Hirschfeld’s 120th birthday.

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ENJOYED SEVERAL CAREERS — AFTER RETIREMENT: Brooklyn Eagle Editor Frederick Arthur Halla was born on the longest day of the year, June 21, 1917; and his time spent working in occupations he loved was almost as long as his 86-year lifetime. Early on, Halla was Superintendent of Eastern District Elementary Schools in Portland, Maine. He also administered Head Start and other education programs in Maine and New York State, and was a candidate for Congress from Maine in 1966. Moving to New York, he sold real estate for a while and later became editor in 1996 of the revived Brooklyn Daily Eagle — this newspaper, the Brooklyn Record (1992) and the Brooklyn Phoenix, staying active with all publications until his November 2003 death. Halla was active also in a variety of civic and philanthropic organizations, was a featured speaker at the annual Battle of Brooklyn Memorial Service in Fort Greene Park and at the Green Wood Cemetery, and was speaker and Man of the Year for the 1997 Brooklyn Memorial Day Parade.

The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, of which Halla was a steadfast member, reports that he lived in or visited over thirty countries on five continents, but returning Maine frequently —often driving at 90 mph in the wee hours, just for the fun of it, even into his 80s.

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HURRICANE REBORN — Hurricane Agnes, which had weakened after hitting Florida’s northern Gulf Coast, suddenly regained strength on June 21, 1972 over the eastern Carolinas. Agnes then hit the eastern seaboard with full force from June 21–26, 1972, causing extensive damage across seven states from Florida to New York and Pennsylvania, where it became the worst on record for the rare June storm.

Hurricane Agnes claimed 118 lives, 116,000 homes after pouring 28.1 trillion gallons of water over Cuba and the Yucatan peninsula and northward along the Atlantic Coast.

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COLONIAL-ERA PURITAN — Increase Mather, the 17th-century Puritan minister, author, and administrator of Harvard University, was born on June 21, 1639. He wrote “Case of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits Personating Men, (1693), in which he expressed concern over the Salem Witch Trials. Increase Mather was controversial, refused to drink to the king’s health and was almost expelled from Harvard for his graduation-day attack on the school’s foundation of Aristotelian logic.

Increase Mather was the father of Cotton Mather, born in 1663, who became a Congregational minister and author, and perhaps the most celebrated of all New England Puritans. Formally ordained in 1685, Cotton Mather became his father’s colleague

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MIDSUMMER’S EVE — The summer solstice, June 21, also marks the celebration of ‘Midsummer,” which is actually the beginning of this season, especially for peoples in Northern Europe and Scandinavia, where the days are very long or the sun never completely sets before rising again. Midsummer is sometimes celebrated in tandem with St. John’s Eve (the feast day of St. John the Baptist being June 24).

Although Midsummer’s roots are from the pagan pre-Christian time in Europe, the element dealing with St. John brings religion into the celebration. People in Norway and Denmark also refer to Midsummer as St. Hans Day (using the Scandinavian version of the name John).

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NINTH STATE — New Hampshire on June 21, 1788 became the ninth state in the new nation to ratify the United States Constitution, and thus to be admitted to the Union. Formerly known as the Province of New Hampshire, the state’s vote of 57-47 to ratify ratification made the Constitution officially adopted, as approval was needed for nine of the former colonies.

According to the U.S. Government Publishing Office, Delaware, on December 7, 1787, was the first state to ratify the Constitution, and Rhode Island, on May 29, 1790, was the last. New York wasn’t exactly one of the first states to ratify either, becoming the 11th state to do so, on July 26, 1788.

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BOTH TRADITIONAL AND PROGRESSIVE — American theologian (the Rev. Dr.) REINHOLD NIEBUHR, born June 21, 1892 in Missouri, became one of the Protestant branch’s influential social critics. Politically liberal but theologically conservative, Niebuhr offered philosophical justification for the New Deal and post-World War II foreign policy, labor and civil rights. He was also the founder of the Fellowship of Christian Socialists and New York’s Liberal Party. The Serenity Prayer, which many attribute to him, was also adopted by the 12-Step program Alcoholics Anonymous.

Niebuhr’s daughter, Elizabeth Niebuhr Sifton was, until her 2019 death, a publisher and author, including of the 2003 book “The Serenity Prayer: Faith and Politics in Times of Peace and War.” Her son, Sam Sifton, is the New York Times’ longtime food editor and the founding editor of New York Times Cooking.

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“FATHER OF EXISTENTIALISM” — The French philosopher and author JEAN-PAUL SARTRE, born at Paris on June 21, 1905 was known as the “father of existentialism.” He was the author of short stories and screenplays, including Les Jeux Sont Faits (The Chips Are Down) about two people – a woman named Eve and a man named Pierre — who meet and fall in love in the afterlife after having been murdered at the exact same moment on earth. Being granted 24 hours back on earth, they wind up using the time to save other people’s lives.

In 1964 Sartre rejected the Nobel Prize in Literature when it was awarded to him.

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NY GOVERNOR AND VICE PRESIDENT — DANIEL D. TOMPKINS, born on June 21, 1774 in New York, served as the fourth governor from 1807-17 and as the sixth vice president (1817-25) under President James Monroe. He was also the fourth Governor of New York, from 1807-1817. During his time as governor, Tompkins proposed the liberation of all slaves in New York to take effect on July 4, 1827.

Tompkins Park in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York (now called Herbert Von King Park) was named after Daniel D. Tompkins, as are the nearby Tompkins Avenue and Tompkins Public Houses. However, no reference could readily be found confirming that Tompkins Place in Cobble Hill was also named for the 6th vice president. Historian John Manbeck’s 2015 extensive Brooklyn Eagle article on the borough’s street names does not mention Tompkins Place.

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PRINCE OF WALES TURNS 41 — Prince William (William Arthur Philip Louis), born on June 21-1982, and heir to the British throne, marks his first birthday as Prince of Wales since his father became King Charles III last year. Passionate about ending homelessness, Prince William told the British newspaper Sunday times last weekend that he will spend his birthday on Wednesday launching a major project on the 130,000-acre estate under his purview — the details of which are being kept secret until the appropriate moment.

Prince William’s mother, Princess Diana of Wales, first got him interested in the issue of homelessness at age 11 when they visited a homeless shelter together.

See previous milestones, here.